The court heard police
raided the address which he shared with his mother at Bryn Hafod in Wrexham, in August of last year.

A total of 3.6 kilogrammes of 4-MEC with an estimated street value of £49,000 was seized.

Judge Rhys Rowlands said that it was a very large quantity.

“You will appreciate that it is a serious matter and one which must attract an immediate custodial sentence of some length,” he explained.

A black notebook was effectively a dealer’s list and showed that he was involved in drug supply “on a significant scale”.

“You knew exactly what you were doing,” the judge told him.

He had previously served an 18-month prison sentence for possessing drugs with intent to supply back in 2000.

“You chose to take the risk. You knew that if caught you would go to prison. Now I am afraid you must take the consequences.”

It was, he said, “plainly commercial dealing on a significant scale.”

Whatever the state of his own addiction, he stood to make a lot of money.

He originally claimed that he only supplied to family and friends but dropped the claim, which was described as “plainly ridiculous” by the judge.

Prosecutor David Mainstone said that police executed a search warrant on August 3, his mother was present but the defendant was not, and in an undertairs cupboard, inside a Christmas tree box, police found a number of bags of 4-MEC, which was similar to MCAT.

It was three kilogrammes with an estimated street value of £49,000.

Scales had traces of the drug on them and police found 960 sealable bags with a device to seal them.

The notebook contained a list of 28 names who owed the defendant drug money.

It also contained the nickname of the man who had supplied Bainbridge with the drugs for £14,000 and figures showed how he had paid more than £4,900 off the debt.

He had sold about £20,000 worth and had £38,000 outstanding, still owed to him by his customers.

Stephen Edwards, defending, said that his client was an electrical technician who had references from two previous employers which showed a different side to his character.

He knew a custodial sentence was inevitable and accepted that he had played a leading role.

Bainbridge was a Wrexham man born and bred, one of five siblings, who had been in a long-term relationship. He had an 11-year-old son, and earned good money which helped him pay a mortgage.

He had kept out of trouble since his release from prison but unfortunately all that changed last year.

The defendant became heavily addicted to the drug, which was “extremely addictive and extremely destructive.”

He had to resign because of his ill-health – depression and a serious kidney malfunction – his partner left him taking their son.

The defendant became involved initially because of his drugs debt and became a supplier himself.

Bainbridge had been shunned to some extent by his family but appreciated that he had brought it all upon himself.

He was sorry for what had done and realised that he had thrown everything away.

Mr Edwards said that his client had since taken steps to alleviate if not eradicate the drug problem.

The judge set a timetable for an investigation under The Proceeds of Crime Act.

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The Editor

Mark Thomas

Liverpool-born Mark joined the Daily Post in January 2014 after seven years as editor of its Merseyside sister title the Liverpool Post. He started out as a weekly news reporter on Wirral Newspapers, and spent seven years at the Daily Post and Liverpool Echo. He was The Press Association's regional correspondent for North Wales, Merseyside and Cheshire from 1983 to 1997, before returning to the ECHO as deputy news editor. He has won a number of journalism awards, including the UK Press Gazzette Regional Reporter of the Year award, and in 1993 wrote a book on the James Bulger murder.